It is known in the field of neuropsychology that behavioral functions are based upon flow among various functional regions in the brain, involving specific spatiotemporal flow patterns. Likewise, behavioral pathologies are often indicated by a change in the patterns of flow. The specific spatiotemporal pattern underlying a certain behavioral function or pathology is composed of functional brain regions, which are often active for many tens of milliseconds and more. The flow of activity among those regions is often synchronization-based, even at the millisecond level and sometimes with specific time delays.
Currently, methods for relating behavioral functions to their underlying localized brain activities usually identify discrete participating regions. Although it is known that multiple regions play a role and that the flow from one region to another is important, there are currently very few methods for patterning this flow and relating the patterns to particular tasks, and those methods which do attempt to pattern the flow do not seem to yield sufficiently sensitive and specific identification of the flow patterns underlying specific behavioral functions and pathologies.